Cantonese or Mandarin?

[PsychoAndy]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Putongua is the official language of China. Most immigtants to the US and many other places speak Cantonese. I prefer the sound of Manderin, the official language, but Cantonese is more useful in the Sbay Area. Nei ho ma?

nei ho bhun.

-PAB

 

[andylawcc]

Originally posted by: WalkingDead
Cantonese comes from the true original Chinese language. If you can read ancent Chinese literatures, historic records, poetry works and others works, the Cantonese sounds much smoother because those works were originally written for it. This has to do with invasions by the northern barbarians during and after the Song Dynasty. In that time there was a mass exodus of scholars and intellectuals from the northern part of China to the south.

The so call mandarin didn't existed until one of those barbarian tribe, the Mongol, took over Northern China and setup their capital in Beijing in the later part of the Song Dynasty. The Mandarin is based mostly on the local language of Beijing. The Mongols eventually conquered the whole China and made mandarin as the offical language. The 2 following dynasties (one of those is the Qing Dynasty which formed by another barbarian tribe: the Manchu) just did bother to change the offical language nor move to capital. So, historically speaking, mandarin is the language created by the barbarians.

whao, i love Chinese history and i never know that...
but, by all means, there should be no negative conotation associated with the word "Barbarians."
they are a culture too, just subjected to a more hostile environment to grow up in. They would nurture a warrior rather than a scholar in the land where resources are very limited